Cricket sells soul to devil

Cricket's soul will always be found at Lord's, but who knows where its heart is anymore.

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OPINION: MUCH STRANGENESS inhabits the world of cricket.

The saviour of English cricket is in a Texas prison. Some of the most influential people in the game are Indian movie stars. A format, invented for those with no attention span, now has the attention of everyone.

And, implausibly, England's gift to the Empire now lives nowhere near it. Instead, it is lost in the wilderness that is Dubai. Madness.

If your relationship with the game existed on a purely functional, financial level, this makes perfect sense. The tax benefits alone of moving the most English of games to the Middle East saved the International Cricket Council (ICC) millions.

But, on a spiritual level, this was an excommunication. You need more than a fax, a phone and a line of credit to claim a connection to the game.

Several of the more viable Emirates have sprouted impressive new cricket grounds. They are some of the most beautiful arenas in the game. And they are soulless. No amount of architectural curiosity can hide the fact that cricket wasn't meant for the desert.

Cricket's soul will always be found at Lord's, but who knows where its heart is anymore. All the evidence of the past few years points to Mumbai and nothing we imagine for the game's future direction tells us that will change any time soon. The Indian Premier League, and its increasingly unhinged commissioner Lalit Modi, has made sure of that.

We are, gratefully, still part of an era in which test cricket has relevance. But for how long? If we were to believe the doomsayers, test matches have been an endangered species since the arrival of one-day internationals in the 1970s.

Yet, somehow, it survives. Cricket's greatest artists still save their masterworks for the most significant interpretation of the sport and that, despite the challenges of the past 35 years, is still a test match.

Ask any of the players. Test averages are like scars. Eventually they become part of your DNA and though he might one day forget his own name, a test batsman will always be certain of his average.

So, how do we align that part of the game with the IPL, where the most significant statistic isn't an average at all, but a number most often expressed in US dollars?

Already, players are truncating otherwise notable test careers, simply to enjoy the uncommon financial benefits offered by a few weeks in India.

It wasn't a terribly long time ago that players believed time spent in that part of the world was time not to be embraced, but endured. Tolerated through clenched teeth and buttocks. No more. Cricket has a pension plan and, if I'm reading it right, it requires only that you know how to play a bit, that you somehow appeal to a bevy of billionaire industrialists and movie star millionaires, and that you do not come from Pakistan.

So much about Pakistan cricket is unknowable, but on this at least we can agree. Its players remain among the best in the world at Twenty20 cricket. Indeed, they have an impressive trophy to prove it. It is therefore difficult to see the shunning of Pakistan's best at the recent IPL auction as anything other than a poke in the eye from a competition and a nation enjoying its status as the sport's undeniable power-broker. Call it a muscle flexed shall we, Mr Modi?

There is danger in this and not just in a sporting context. Already, tension between the two nations, which generally operates at a level slightly below hysterical, has raised a notch.

The platitudinous "it's only a game" doesn't apply to anything involving India and Pakistan, because in that part of the world, it simply is not. Never has been.

Thank goodness all IPL contracts end this year, so next season everyone, megalomaniac Bollywood starlets included, can start with a clean slate and a fresh attitude.

But while there is silliness in the game, there is also sensibility. An understanding that when you watch cricket, a certain intelligence is assumed.

There has been no better recent reminder of than during Pakistan's tour of Australia.

Australia's one-day uniform is dark green with traces of gold. Pakistan's one day uniform is ... dark green with traces of yellow.

From a great distance you might not be able to tell them apart, but nobody I know watches cricket from a great distance.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Each country decides on its uniform and then wears it, unmoved by corporate imperative or official decree.

Rugby, please take note.

eric.young@star-times.co.nz

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